


the scalpel & the plow

by callunavulgari



Category: Dead Like Me, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dead Like Me, M/M, Reapers, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3567077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“C’mon then, Casper. Share your trade secrets with the recently departed here. Where do I find that stairway to heaven? Lucy’s gotta be up there somewhere, right?” [Dead Like Me AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	the scalpel & the plow

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the TW Micro Bang. It got uh, a little bit bigger than I wanted it to be, but no worries. You don’t really need to be familiar with Dead Like Me to read it. Basically though, it’s a show where, when certain people die, instead of going to their paradise, they become reapers. Their job is now to take the souls of the people that they have been assigned.
> 
> Mix made by me can be found [here](http://8tracks.com/callunavulgari/the-scalpel-the-plow). Artwork by childofnike can be found [here](http://twmicrobang.tumblr.com/post/113887146441/artist-childofnike-author-callunavulgari-title). :)

Stiles Stilinski takes his last breath in the jeep. He’s going well over the speed limit, hands shaking on the wheel, and has his phone pressed between his cheek and his shoulder. Derek’s voice is thin and ragged on the other end of the line.

The last thing he ever says is, “I’m on my way.”

It would be ironic, he supposes, if he’d died because of the phone. Don’t text and drive, kids. Save your conversations for when the car is parked. Don’t be another statistic, Stiles. His dad’s harped on him about it since he got the damn car. Stiles knows better.

He doesn’t though. Crash because of the phone, that is.

By the time the deer hits him, his phone has already been tossed into the passenger seat.

He doesn’t remember much after that.

.

His jeep is a wreck. The front end is crumpled inwards, first from where the buck had hit it, and then from the tree he’d ended up careening into.

Stiles doesn’t remember that part. There was the phone, the panic, and then the deer. That’s it.

“Is it sad that I’m more upset about the jeep?” he asks the woman standing next to him. The cops aren’t here yet, but he can hear sirens in the distance. The soccer mom who’d sped past the smoking remains of his jeep is probably to blame for that.

He really hopes that his dad isn’t on call.

“Pretty sure it says some nasty things about the state of your psych, but hey. Who am I to judge. I’ve been dead for five years.”

Stiles looks at the woman for the first time since she arrived, pulling his gaze away from the sight of his own body. His skull is practically caved in where it had hit the steering wheel and there’s something morbidly fascinating at the sight of his own blank eyes staring back at him.

The woman stares at him, her mouth thin with displeasure.

It takes Stiles a moment to recognize her, but when he does, he recoils in shock.

“Wow,” he says. “Being a ghost suits you way better than your corpse.”

“I’m not a ghost,” Laura Hale tells him, one eyebrow arched. She smiles. It’s a sharp thing, her smile. Sharper than any of the Hales he’s met yet, and considering that he’s been threatened by every single one of them, that’s saying something.

“Okay,” he breathes, glancing up when a squad car pulls up next to him. It’s not his dad’s. Good. Great. That’s not going to stop him from finding out, but at least his dad won’t be the one to find him like this. “Not a ghost then. So what’s next? We gonna party it up at that great gig in the sky?”

Laura looks at him.

Distantly, he can hear the deputy inhale sharply when they recognize the jeep. Stiles watches out of the corner of his eye as the man — one of the newer officers, post-nogitsune, he thinks — flings himself around the side of the jeep. Listens as the man curses quietly when he spots what is most definitely a corpse in the driver’s seat.

Maybe he won’t call dad first. Maybe he’ll call in other officers, the coroner, anyone who will at least clean Stiles up before his dad sees him.

“Sheriff Stilinski, please,” the man says into the phone.

Fuck. No dice then.

Laura’s still looking at him.

“What?” he hisses. “C’mon then, Casper. Share your trade secrets with the recently departed here. Where do I find that stairway to heaven? Lucy’s gotta be up there somewhere, right?”

Get me out of here, he thinks, selfishly. Before my dad shows up.

“It’s not that simple.” Laura sighs, long and hard, through her nose. It reminds him, rather painfully, of Derek. “And I’m really not a ghost.”

“Okay.” Stiles shrugs. “So tell me about it then. Something tells me that we’ve got the time.”

Laura’s mouth kicks up at the corner. “Fine. I’ll tell you about it over coffee and doughnuts. Trust me, kid. I haven’t forgotten how much of an appetite I had after I died. Takes a lot out of you.”

There are other sirens now. The deputy, having hung up the phone, has his head in his hands. He hasn’t even had the decency to close Stiles’ eyes yet, and in minutes, his dad’s going to be right here. Stiles isn’t usually selfish when it comes to his family, but this time he thinks that he’s going to need to.

It’s time for Stiles to go.

“Yeah,” he says. “Sounds good to me.”

.

“So, this is some kind of don’t fear the reaper shit?” Stiles says later, once Laura’s explained. His eggs are going cold on his plate, but Stiles had been too busy scarfing down his bacon and waffles to care.

Reluctantly, Laura gives him an amused look. “Do you always speak in song lyrics?”

Stiles shrugs. “Only when the situation calls for it.”

Laura looks more like her brother than Cora did. She has the same sharp features, the same weird technicolor eyes, and yes, she has the exact same scowl. Stiles wonders if they’d taken more after their dad then.

She takes a bite of her eggs benedict. “You understand, then. Why you can’t have anything to do with them.”

Stiles swallows his bacon. She’d explained this bit. About how he didn’t look the same anymore, how no one would ever believe him. How they might go crazy if he tried. She’d even taken him into the bathroom at the back of the diner to show him his reflection.

He looks like a washed out version of himself. Like all of his features have been sanded down, the sharpness rubbed out of him. Everything that made him unique polished away. No more moles. His eyes smaller, a murky brown. Hair lighter. Jawline more rounded.

Stiles looks ordinary. A face that you wouldn’t be able to pick out of a police line up much less recognize on the streets.

“Yeah, not so much,” he says, narrowing his eyes.

She sets her fork down. “Let them grieve. Let them move on. It will be better this way.”

“That what they told you?” Stiles barks out a short laugh. “That everything would be fine and dandy if you just let everyone forget about you?”

“My family is dead,” she growls. “There is no everyone.”

“Derek.”

Laura blinks. “What about him?”

Stiles lets his anger simmer away under the surface. He wonders if he can get away with stabbing her with his steak knife. It’s not like she’d take it personally, right? She’s dead, and a werewolf to boot. She’d heal. “You had Derek. But you thought it would be better for him to just think you were dead?”

“I am dead.”

Stiles gives her a flat look. “You know what I mean.”

“It’s better—”

“No,” Stiles hisses, cutting her off with a furious gesture. “You listen to me. My pack has dealt with homicidal alphas, hunters, kanimas, evil druid ladies, fucking fox demons, and Kate Argent. And you’re really trying to tell me that they wouldn’t believe this?”

He laughs when she doesn’t say anything. “This is just the newest shitstorm. Because dude, my best buddy is out there right now fighting off a horde of trolls, and probably won’t even find out I’m dead until tomorrow morning. Yourbrother is out there, and when he finds out, he’s probably going to blame himself for calling me in as backup, just like he’s blamed himself for you and your entire family dying.”

Laura looks… Well, he can’t say that she looks stricken, because her expression is too angry for that. She looks like she’s going to tear his throat out with her teeth. All the same, he thinks that there might be a small glimmer of guilt there.

“I’m going,” he tells her, standing up from the table so quickly that the woman in the booth behind them looks up in alarm. “You can’t stop me. I’ll be your reaper. I’ll take your souls and your post-it notes like a good little dog, but I will not leave my pack to mourn me. Not when they don’t have to.”

.

When Stiles goes to collect his first soul, Derek comes with him.

“Are you sure you should be here?” Stiles asks, turning the post-it note over and over again in his pocket. A. H. Schulls is going to die today, and forty seven minutes from now, Stiles is going to take their soul. “What with your reputation and all?”

Derek gives him a look. “Stiles, we’re in the middle of the woods.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, because they are. “But still. What if the police show up?”

“They won’t.” Derek shrugs, glancing at him. “And besides, your dad’s the sheriff. He knows what you are. He wouldn’t let either of us go to jail.”

“Doesn’t mean it isn’t against reaper protocol somewhere, having a civilian along and all that.”

Derek snorts. “Do you really care?”

Stiles thinks about it. He’s already broken the biggest rule in the reaper handbook, so it’s not like it would matter. “Not really.”

They walk in silence for awhile, letting the birdsong fill the void between them. It’s comfortable. Just another walk through the woods, off to find another dead body. It’s almost like they’ve gone full circle.

Stiles hasn’t told Derek about Laura yet. But from the looks she’s been giving him, it’s only a matter of time before she approaches him herself.

“It doesn’t bother you?” Stiles asks, after a good ten minutes have passed. “Me looking like this?”

Derek stops when he does, and looks at him. “Not really. The smell is weirder.”

Stiles snorts. Despite everything he’d said to Laura, when he finally found the pack, they almost hadn’t believed him. Not because of his looks, or even the fact that he was dead, but because he didn’t smell like himself anymore.

“Weirdo wolves,” he sighs, catching a glimpse of a bright pink shirt a good half mile off the trail. That must be Schulls.

“Hey,” Derek says, catching him by the hip when Stiles makes to set off after her. Stiles looks at him, thoroughly unimpressed. It’s not like they have to catch that girl before she dies or anything. They’re kind of on a time limit.

“What?”

Derek shifts uneasily. Half of his features are lit up by an afternoon sun ray that’s made it through the trees, the other half cast in shadow. He looks good like this. Hell, Derek always looks good, but he looks different somehow, softer almost. “It doesn’t bother me. You’re still you.”

Stiles smirks. “Thanks buddy. I’ll write it in my diary when we get back. ‘Dear diary, today Derek Hale gave me the best adv—’”

Derek grabs his chin, yanking him around suddenly, so that they’re face to face. His lips chase the words straight from Stiles’ mouth.

“Oh,” Stiles breathes, once Derek pulls back. His lips tingle. “It really doesn’t bother you.”

“I’m just glad you’re not dead,” Derek tells him, nosing the skin under Stiles’ jaw and wrapping his arms around his ribs. It shouldn’t be so comfortable, shouldn’t be so easy between them, not when they’ve never done this before.

But, he supposes, they have been working up to it for awhile.

Stiles leans into him.

“I am dead,” he mutters, because at heart, he’s a little shit. Stiles Stilinski died fourteen days ago in his jeep. Three days ago, Stiles even attended his own funeral. It was a small thing, very cut and dry. No speeches. Just a headstone and a grave.

And if anyone was concerned that Stiles’ father and friends weren’t crying, they kept it to themselves.

“You know what I mean,” Derek chides, pressing another soft kiss to his lips.

In thirty-two minutes, A. H. Schulls is going to slip and bash her head open on a rock. In twenty-nine, Stiles is going to take her soul. They’re maybe a half a mile from her location. If Derek carries him, they can catch up to her in five.

They have the time.

Stiles bites down on a grin.

This time, he kisses back.

After all, you only live once. Right?


End file.
